Wastewater epidemiology is most commonly used at a city utility level, however, the ability to test at a building level, such as hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and schools, is advantageous for many public health reasons. Towards that goal, researchers at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte conducted an evaluation of the Concentrating Pipette (CP) during the peak of the pandemic, utilizing wastewater samples collected from campus buildings. Their study aimed to assess the CP's efficacy in concentrating disease pathogens compared to conventional methods, focusing on sensitivity, specificity, and reliability in detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
The findings indicate that the CP performs comparably or even surpasses traditional and more laborious processing techniques. It exhibits high sensitivity, particularly in detecting low pathogen concentrations, enabling early detection and within close habitation building communities through wastewater monitoring. Additionally, the CP's design minimizes sample contamination risks and reduces potential human errors, thereby enhancing result reliability. This not only improves wastewater surveillance accuracy but also streamlines the testing process, rendering it more efficient and cost-effective.
By optimizing InnovaPrep’s wastewater protocol, the research group achieved enhanced recovery efficiency, which has since been integrated into InnovaPrep’s current protocol. Overall, the study underscores the CP's effectiveness in pathogen detection in wastewater. Its high recovery efficiency, reliability, repeatability, and integrated design proves it as a valuable tool for disease monitoring at a building level, including universities, nursing homes, prisons, and hospitals..
Read the publication entitled - Performance evaluation of virus concentration methods for implementing SARS-CoV-2 wastewater based epidemiology emphasizing quick data turnaround, Juel et al.
Science of the Total Environment Vol. 801
Click here for InnovaPrep’s protocol “Concentrating Pathogens from Raw and Primary Wastewater Using the InnovaPrep® Concentrating Pipette™”
